


To Be Played

by bold_seer



Category: Prison Break
Genre: Drug Use, M/M, Season/Series 03, Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-27
Updated: 2018-01-27
Packaged: 2019-03-03 12:19:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13341123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bold_seer/pseuds/bold_seer
Summary: And Michael thinks.





	To Be Played

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sandrine Shaw (Sandrine)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sandrine/gifts).



Mahone is caressing the wall behind Michael, forming a halo above his head. He steps from the shadows into the sun, a strip of light that runs over his features, hair, eyes, lashes. Sona paints saints and sinners with the same brush. And Michael thinks, as much as he can in the heat of the moment, this is the first time the man’s truly rattled him. But is it the unpredictability? Or the control slipping out of his hands.

Still, waiting, Mahone looks like lion. He looks like a wolf. He looks like a man, the most dangerous hunter, deadly in a hundred different ways. Then he falls to his knees, right there at Michael’s feet, not two inches from him. And Michael thinks - he plots and he manipulates, he strings people along before he cuts them loose, and occasionally, he improvises.

“You’re on something.” Michael’s voice is steady, a little dismissive, but his pulse is racing. Can it be this easy, taming a wild animal? Wrestling back control.

Blinking, Mahone seems dazed, off his game. Confused where he is, where things are going. What he’s meant to be doing, down in the dirt. And Michael thinks, senses his own power, right now he could probably talk Mahone into anything. Not a wild goose chase, but some other distraction. Make him do something. (Beg or worship or what, at the altar of Michael Scofield.)

He can’t. His father’s killer. A spiralling addict. A sharp and ruthless agent, peaked too high and stooped so low. How much of that edge remains?

Mahone gives a throaty laugh. “I’m onto something, Michael.” But his fingers are distractedly digging into his palms.

And Michael thinks like an engineer. Add fire. Add water. Add a cross, take away power. Searches his mind, _it almost sounds like you care_ , for building blocks to use. An angle he can work.

“Alright,” he murmurs. “You’d better get to it then, Alex.” Gentle on the surface, while steering some wild thing into a cage.

There’s something clawing at his conscience. Hubris Michael may be guilty of, but Mahone shouldn’t, couldn’t be trapped so easily if he was in his right mind. Or on the right drug. But Mahone isn’t, and - no matter how corrupt or damned he is - he isn’t evil. Nor is Michael the kind of person who would coerce someone, not into _that_. For what, revenge? _You’re exactly where you belong._

Mahone’s smiling at whatever beatific dream he’s having, blue skies in a clouded waking state. “This isn’t, _ah_ , a concession.”

It has to be. About giving something up. And maybe Michael is tired of giving. It isn’t leverage, he wants to protest. Imagines a set of unlikely circumstances in which this scene becomes blackmail fodder. Or payment in itself. Payback, payoff.

“Alright,” he repeats. Doesn’t know if that’s what he wants to say, though he means it too. Idly, he wonders if anyone ever experienced buyer’s remorse before a transaction. Before an act even took place. Act brings to mind a play, something made-up and scripted. Even though the Panama heat has never felt more real. His cell never so cramped before. But there’s no act without action, and they’ve not crossed that line in the sand. Not yet.

Hardly a transaction either; Michael isn’t buying or selling. There’s nothing Mahone can hope to gain. No pills (in return for what?). No fast lane ticket out of here. No promises.

He wonders how safe it is, getting close to someone who barks _and_ bites. Probably as safe as closing in on a tiger. Giving that tiger a paper crane to marvel at. To solve, to unfold, to trace. Tattooed escape plans and missing toes later, Michael can’t be accused of taking the safest route. Or always the wisest.

Mahone’s hand hovers over Michael’s thigh, the ghost of a touch before that touch occurs. And, just for a moment, Michael stops thinking.


End file.
